1981 : chronologie performance

1981

- ABRAMOVIC Marina & ULAY, Gold Found by the Artist, 1981.

- ARAHMAIANI, Newspaper Man, Bandung, Indonesia.

- ANDERSON Laurie, O, Superman, 1981 (vidéo).

- CALLE Sophie, The Shadow, 1981.

- CAMERON Shirley, Silver Evelyn Angels And Overalls, 1981.

- CIBULKA Heinz, Motor Vokal, 1981.

- FEMINIST ART WORKERS (Klick, Angelo, Gaulke), Heaven or hell, 1981.

- FERRER Esther (Zaj), Ida y vuelta y vice-versa (primera version-Representacion grafica de una performance), 1981. Montage graphique.

- FISCHER Thomas, Monde primitif, novembre 1981. Cologne.

- FLANAGAN Bob, You Always Hurt The One You Love: SM Performance, 1981. Q.S.M. San Francisco.

- FLEMING Sherman (aka RodForce), Postcard invitation for Fault, 1981. 

Art Archive, Fales Library, NYC University.

Using his former pseudonym RodForce, Sherman Fleming explored ideas about black masculinity and confronted the psychosexual tensions surrounding it. Something Akin to Living (1979), is seen here on the invitation to Fault, an endurance-based media performance presented at Exit Art on April 15, 1981. This postcard is addressed to Melissa Rachleff, then an intern at Exit Art. The artist’s scribbed note reads: ‘‘Melissa, I received the 3/4’’ (video) from Endurance. Thanks for the return. And thanks for the inclusion in the Endurance show. Hope to hear from you soon, let me know what’s going on. Sherman.’’

- MACLENNAN Alistair, Days & Nights, 1981. (action).

- MARMOLEJO Maria Evelia, Anonimo 1. 1981.

Performance at Plazoleta of Centro Administrativo Municipal, Cali. photo: Fabio Arango.

According to the Colombian scholar Maria Iovino, in 1981, Maria Evelia Marmolejo (1958, Colombia) created the first feminist performance art piece in Colombia ‘‘11 de Marzo’’ (March 11th), an action with menstrual blood. A graduate of visual arts from Instituto Departamental de Bella Artes in Cali, Marmolejo was influenced by the body art movement of the 1970s. Her ritualistic performances Anonimos 1, 2 y 4 (1981-1982) involve self-mutilation and psychological with organic matters such as blood, human placentas, urine and earth. Her practice often have a healing aspect and involve medical paraphernalia such as gauze, adhesive bandages and menstrual pads. Marmolejo’s production of strong imagery evokes and responds to Colombia’s recent and past history. In America (1985), performed at Plaza Colon, Madrid, Spain, Marmolejo proposed an act of mourning for the 500th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the americas, thus reminding the death of 64 million Native Americans between ‘the conquest’ and colonial times.

- MOL Kees & VAN POPPEL Jaques, Das Schönste, sept. 1981. Alte Oper. Francfort.

- PACQUÉE Ria, Pain-Pain, Besançon, 1981.

- PACQUÉE Ria, Telling a Secret to a Stone, 1981.

- PAIK Nam June et GORDON Denise, Life’s Ambition realized, 1981, 12 oct. 81. The Kitchen, NYC.

- SAPIEN Darryl, American Roulette, 1981. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NYC. 

— A roulette table manned by two croupiers and crowded with eager gamblers sits at the center of the Guggenheim Rotunda. Depicted on the floor around the table is an exploded view a a roulette Wheel with numbered red and black squares. There are two male/female couples moving around the giant Wheel. One couple occupies the red squares and the other the black squares. Their movements are determined by the result of the spinning of the roulette Wheel. At consécutive numbered squares they enact a symbolic progression of a romantic Relationship from beginning to end. They are betting their personal Relationship against career advancement hoping their gains in one will cover their loses in the other.

- SCHMIDLIN Stephan, Viel Glück im 1981.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Fresh Blood : A Dream Morphology. 

— Dual slide projection system with dissolve unit, pre-recorded and spoken text. Sound collage. Live relay vidéo feeds into four monitors. Red umbrella, red pajamas, watering can, door, raised table, etc. 1981-87. Based on a menstrual dream which asks the question « what do a red umbrella and a bouquet of dried flowers stuffed with little dolls have in common ? » The resulting iconography of related images combine « V » symbols from the human body, other organic forms, sacred artifacts, common objects to form the projection sequence. CS is joined by her double – a black woman as nurse, judge, western union – they présent unconscious and active links in a shared history which is personal, racial, political and sexual. « Fresh Blood – A Dream Morphology » posited female physical exposure the féminine as normative. In examining our most taboo viscerality I was built an ethos in which male phobias were eliding. I would invert the projects of the unsanity leakage, abject, I could posit all the wet bloody cyclic not only in its physically, but in a conceptual frame of positive range so that the phobic masculine would have to shrivel and cower…the functions of my body would not be symptomatic or all that is not male. » (C.S.)